Naa we didn’t lose the know how. All the models and mockups, unused engines etc and all of the hard copy and computer data still exists and the “brains” behind it all were still almost all around working in other aerospace ventures well into the 90’s.
Our problem was that if anything the missions became too routine and nothing new was really being discovered so the public lost interest.
Had they kept the push on to go ahead and reach Mars by 2000 it might have gone another direction but it’s hard to keep the American People behind any cause longer than a decade particularly one where many if not most can’t see a direct benefit in their own lives for that kind of spending.
But it’s exactly that kind of condescending, childlike ‘news’ which attracts all the clicks, so NASA thinks ‘Why spend all that money on real science when we can keep the show on the road just as easily by faking it?’: it makes perfect sense to me, because taxpayers’ money, which would otherwise go to space research, can then be put to more worldly use. It’s a win-win for the taxpayers?
I heard that some ppl think the moon and other planets are chock full of minerals(gold/silver/uranium etc etc) What they forget to mention, though is how much it would cost to mine it and bring it back to earth.
I don’t know where you heard that, there are no plans to look on the outer planets or moons for minerals for shipment back to earth.
There is some serious interest in mining asteroids however which would be exponentially more profitable.
It takes almost nothing to reach escape velocity from ever the largest asteroids because of their micro gravity and the hope is that engines can be added to them so they can be maneuvered close to earth and mars to make for very short trips in both directions.
Reminded me of Robert Heinlein’s “Moon is a Harsh Mistress,”. During a revolution of “Loonies” (originally a penal colony) living on the moon they use Magnetic Catapults as weapons, to threaten the earth. Like throwing giant rocks at the earth.
How the hell could anyone set foot on an asteroid which is haphazardly hurtling through space at 60,000mph, let alone set up a mining infrastructure on it, answer us that? Here you go, read this - straight from the horses mouth:
“This object’s cruising velocity through interstellar space was 59,000 miles per hour (26.3 kilometers per second). That was its speed as it approached our solar system, and the speed it will have after it exits our solar system. At that speed, interstellar object 1I/2017 U1 will cover one light year in about 11,000 years.”
And if you want a good laugh, read the rest of the article too. Honestly how can you believe all this nonsense? ‘There is some serious interest in mining asteroids’? Get a grasp of reality TWR.
The same way we set foot on earth or the moon or any other planet or moon.
Space is a vacuum, there is no wind resistance to blow you off and as long as you match it’s speed through space you could literally step out onto it without landing because your relative speed between the ship and asteroid is 0.
The earth is traveling at 66.000mph, our moon travels at the same speed astronomically but also circles the earth at 2,288mph.
In space speed is relative to the two objects being compared.
Once again you prove you are dangerously ignorant.
Notwithstanding all that drivel, impetus is still needed, not only to catch up with the rock, but to keep precise pace with it to enable all the machinery and materials necessary to install an entire mining infrastructure to be lowered from the space ship? Can you not comprehend how utterly ludicrous this whole concept is? Only one of us in this exchange is ‘dangerously ignorant’ and it ain’t me. How can an adult be so bloody gullible!!
Nothing ludicrous about it It’s not different than matching speed between two ships at see to fuel or pass passengers and supplies between them except there are no waves.
The impetus is easy, profit in a world with an ever growing population and a need for precious and industrial metals and minerals.
Once we move into space, permanent bases on the moon, Mars, and beyond it will not only become profitable it will be essential.
How can I believe this? I’m not a moron and have a 3 different scientific degrees.
I also grew up during the space age with a dad who worked for Von Braun at White Sands, and graduated MIT with a triple major in Math, Physics, and Chemistry.
These were things we expected to have already accomplished by 2000 but after the Apollo program and the cost of defeating the Soviet Union the public drive and money pretty well vaporized.
